


Shorn

by Avelera



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Disfigurement, Dwarf Culture & Customs, Facial Hair, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Haircuts, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pre-Slash, Ritual Disfigurement, Rituals, standards of beauty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-13 04:25:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3367736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avelera/pseuds/Avelera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A close-shorn beard can only mean one thing to a dwarf of the Longbeard clan: abiding grief. Thorin cut his beard short for the first time the day Erebor fell, and on that day he took an oath that he would seek no lover, take no care for his own beauty until Erebor be reclaimed. Yet the weekly ritual is draining, as each time he must commemorate all he lost, and the burnt beards of his forefathers. </p><p>Bilbo has no idea of any of this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shorn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladyoakenshields](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyoakenshields/gifts).
  * Translation into Polski available: [Shorn](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13597236) by [GodOfWar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GodOfWar/pseuds/GodOfWar)



> This fic was written for hobbitunderthemountain based on a discussion we were having about dwarven beauty standards. In this piece, I try to incorporate Richard Armitage's belief that Thorin's short beard is to commemorate the burnt beards of the dwarves who fled Erebor, as he actually has a longer one visible before the mountain fell. The fic got away from me a bit, as most drabbles do. I hope you enjoy.

Once the Company had been introduced to their host, Thorin saw to it that they settled in, a cook fire going in Beorn’s enormous hearth and those burns and latent wounds treated. Only once this was arranged did Thorin take himself away for a more personal errand and sought out Óin for a pair of shears. His own had been lost along with his pack in the goblin tunnels, but Óin kept his medical tools in a jeweler’s roll in his inner coat pocket.

Thorin’s older cousin gave him a look at the request, understanding mixed with sympathy, though it represented itself as a frown on that aged face. He handed over a pair of wicked steel scissors that sharpened to a point, used for cutting stitches, and as an afterthought a small, polished hand-mirror of bronze. Thorin thanked him with a nod, understanding coming easy between those who had once known the fallen city.

He went away from the Company then, into the garden before the last setting of the sun. It was still light enough for his purpose, and if necessary he could have performed the chore in the dark, with the familiarity of many decades. At times he did so without the aid of a mirror at all, only feeling the length. It did not sear him as it once did, to cut his beard, though it was an absence as painful as the loss of an eye, or an arm for how it scarred the body. Worse, for those wounds might be won honorably in battle, taking on beauty of their own for the heroism they represented. Whereas his short beard meant only one thing: loss. Loss that cut so deep it nearly separated him from dwarvendom—from life—itself. 

Many times when he was younger he would return from the ritual and Dís would cluck in disapproval. Her beard was short as well, for all the sons and daughters of Thráin had taken the same oath, but for all the modesty of her beard, at least it was well kempt. She still decorated braids and silver beads, and did not hack it away as he did. She would sigh, and fetch the kitchen shears, and even out the spots where he had missed. Calm, and competent, she would not sigh or flinch as the hair fell away, and only the quiet snipping of her scissors would fill the silence between them. Until she declared herself satisfied, and sent him on his way as if he were one of her sons, and not her elder brother.

He did not know why she bothered. It was not as if he was seeking a wife or husband. Save for his bloodline, none would give him a second glance as disfigured as he was, and he had no interest in those who only sought the blood of Durin. It had once earned him respect, and a certain fearful admiration, but now often as not it was treated for what it was: a scar.

Thorin took out the bronze mirror, bracing it on the branch of a low tree as he removed the shears. He did not begin to cut immediately. It was not simple self-care, for there was no vanity in it, rather it was a ritual. Self-flagellation, and he would never grow used to it. The sound of a dwarf cutting his beard was as mournful as a cry from the soul.

All had looked away from him the first time he cut it, in the aftermath of the burning, when Thorin had finally seen for himself how few had escaped the mountain. In that wild moment of despair and pain, he had seized the knife from his belt, and in one sawing motion had severed his nascent beard at the root, holding the tendrils with their silver bead as he wept and raged.

Those who had not been there, and had not seen the moment of his collapse, viewed the gesture with approval. They called him an honorable youth, pious and wise beyond his years. Yet once those years began to wear on, his detractors had called the gesture an excessiveness of piety that bordered on vanity of its own. They had lost much in Erebor, and at Azanulbizar, but there was a new life for them here in the Blue Mountains. Why not embrace that life, and forget the tragedies of the past? Why must Thorin Oakenshield force them to confront their losses every day with the vulgarity of his shaven beard, as unsightly scar on his dwarven form and pride as deep gashes carved into fine stone? Mourning a decade, even a century, was surely right and just for so great a loss as Erebor, but more than that? Surely that must be only pride now, as one too stubborn to accept its loss.  They wanted to forget, to move on.

 _Good_ , Thorin thought, seizing the first strand and shearing it with unwarranted savagery. For a moment, the anger bolstered him, it took away the usual pounding of grief and hopelessness. He did not regret his decision. Let them remember. Let them look at him every day and know there was one dwarf yet who never forgave, who never forgot. Let them have their discomfort, for so long as the dragon made his abode in their sacred halls they should not rest easy.

A great anger without hope burned within him, rekindled every week when it needed trimming again. He took himself away at such times, and made a vigil of it, for surely as the memories rose around him like smoke he was in no state after to meet or speak with others. He could see it in their eyes, though, when he returned pale and stern as one of the many ghosts they’d left behind. He wondered, in those dark moments, if it would have been better to fall that day too, and not seen the depths to which they would sink.

Brooding thoughts, ultimately selfish in their nature, and unworthy of a prince of Durin’s line. He discarded them from his lips if not his heart once the memory of the shearing lessened. Though he may wish he had never seen Erebor’s fall, or the battle that earned him the name Oakenshield, had he not there was no telling what would have happened to his people. Who would have seen to their needs after the death of his grandfather and brother, and the disappearance of father? Dís was fourteen years younger even than he, and occupied with the birth of her sons and the loss of her husband, while he… he was alone. It was his duty, and his destiny, and he wore it as he did the shorn beard: as a sign that he would always be alone. Trapped in a living death until the mountain was reclaimed or he perished in the attempt. Who knew which it would be?

(In some secret, hidden part of his heart, he already knew.)

Thorin looked again into the polished bronze. Little had changed that could be seen in the muddled surface, but he could feel beneath his fingers the shorn edges, the length no longer enough to be pulled at. It was lighter, cooler, and Thorin felt immensely heavier for it. Weighted down by memory, and old, helpless anger. What could have been, what once was, was lost now in the shrouds of the past, with only a disfigured dwarf and a displaced people to recall it.

The shears were not his own, and so Thorin did not drop them in disgust once his errand was complete. He scrubbed his fingers through the newly short length, removing the loose hairs, placing Óin’s medical shears back in their leather sheathe and then back into a pocket until they could be returned, along with the bronze mirror.

He turned back to Beorn's house, shoulders weighted, and mind awash in grief--

\-- Only to see the burglar there, waiting for him.

Thorin startled, and stopped in his tracks, and Bilbo looked equally surprised. Tentative. He raised his hand in a little wave, tilting his head in inquiry. “Ah, hello Thorin. Are you just about done?”

“Have you been there all this time?” Thorin said, rougher than he intended but this ritual was… private, sacred, and shameful. He needed no reminder that the short beard was unattractive, especially not from their burglar. It was meant to be so, a signal to all potential suitors that he had sacrificed his appearance to his grief. There was dignity in that, yet at times it chafed when surrounded by such specimens of dwarvendom as Bombur, or Dori. Not that he could compare to them even if he were whole, but for some reason this stung all the more around Bilbo. The last thing he needed was the hobbit bearing witness to his disfigurement.

Bilbo seemed taken aback by the question, falling back on his heels, his questioning hand returning to his side. “Well, it’s not as if I were spying. I was only waiting my turn, though I must say you have a very steady hand. I can’t imagine many people could make such a clean job of it without a proper glass.”

Thorin’s brow furrowed, and it took him a moment to connect that Bilbo was complimenting his skill at trimming his beard. He bristled instinctively, and only forced the anger down by reminding himself that Hobbits were closer aligned with Men than Dwarves. For them, hair was an ornament at best, carrying no greater identity, and they cut it as casually as they may change their clothing. “In the future I would thank you to take yourself elsewhere. It is not something I wish for you to watch.”

His jaw twitched, for yet again the words came out harsher than he meant, and this time he could see Bilbo was stung by them. His face fell, then stiffened, and he raised his chin in defiance. “All right, all right, you’ve made yourself clear enough. I’ll borrow the shears from Óin later.”

“What for?”

Bilbo rolled his eyes, as if Thorin had just asked him why he said the dwarves had parasites. “To cut my hair, what else?”

“It looks fine to me,” Thorin said, moving a bit closer, not really sure why he did so except he had not meant to chase Bilbo off. The solemnity of the ritual was falling from his shoulders, his mind clearing of the reek of smoke.

“Yes, well, it would I imagine,” Bilbo said. “But if I don’t trim it soon I’m going to go quite mad. It’s an absolute rat’s nest, and tickling my ears terribly. So if you don’t mind, once you’re done I’ll need to borrow them as well and find someone to get the back for me.”

“I will,” Thorin said, before he could think better of it.

“What?” Bilbo gaped.

“I will cut it for you. As you said, I have steady hands,” Thorin said. After all, dwarves may wear their hair long, but they were no strangers to managing the length. It was only cutting down a beard until it could be hardly called such that was seen as unattractive if one was not an adolescent.

“It’s only… I thought you would have better things to do. I’m sure Bofur, or Dori could.”

“I said I would do it,” Thorin interrupted, finding himself oddly annoyed at the thought of the other dwarves doing this for Bilbo. “It will not take long,” he added.

“Can’t argue with that,” Bilbo said, albeit warily. “Shall I sit, or…?”

“Sit or kneel as you choose, only remain steady,” Thorin said. Bilbo stared at him a moment longer, as if uncertain what to make of Thorin, before he shrugged and picked out a smooth stone to sit upon. Thorin approached, kneeling behind him, lips pursed as he tugged at one of the curls, trying to get a sense for what length Bilbo had worn when they first met, for surely that was what he preferred.

After a moment Bilbo’s fingers began to fidget in his lap and he looked back over his shoulder. “This feels terribly odd, you know.”

Thorin casually grabbed the top of Bilbo’s head with his fingertips and forced him to look forward before going back to his work examining the hair. “And why is that?”

“Well, it’s only just… it’s _you_. Last week I wasn’t even sure you liked me,” Bilbo said. Thorin paused, staring at his hands from a moment. The silvery sheers looped the ends of his fingers.

“That was my error, but it is in the past now,” Thorin said. He could smell Bilbo’s hair, still reeking of pine smoke, and yet found himself oddly comforted. He leaned in despite himself, catching his tongue between his teeth as he began to shake his hands through Bilbo’s hair to loose the severed strands and hunt out any he might have missed.

“Oh. Well, much appreciated,” Bilbo said, then began to fidget again, Thorin noticed with some annoyance, as the tiny motions upset his perception of the length. It would hardly do to leave Bilbo lopsided. “It’s only, when you snapped, I feared I might have done something to offend you again.”

“Then I must offer my apologies. I was not angry at you,” Thorin murmured as he focused.

“May I ask what it was?” Bilbo said, and then added hurriedly, “Only, I’d rather not trip over such things in the future. Of course, if it’s a private matter…?”

“It is,” Thorin said. Exhausting to even think on it, let alone discuss it. But as close to Bilbo as he was, he could feel the hitch in his breath at Thorin’s bluntness. He sighed. Perhaps it would be easier to explain it, just the once, rather than feel the weight of that curiosity again, or guilt at being so harsh with him for reasons the hobbit could not understand. It twisted within him strangely, this feeling that he may have disappointed Bilbo. “I did not wish for you to bear witness to my disfigurement.”

“Disfigurement?” Bilbo said, sitting up straighter in surprise, and Thorin hissed under his breath in annoyance as Bilbo pulled away and turned around, dragging a strand of hair from Thorin’s grasp. “What disfigurement? You seem handsome enough to me.”

Thorin’s fingers, which had been hunting to get the long strand back so that he could even it, froze. He swallowed, and some distant part of him knew he should speak. He needed to tell Bilbo… anything, the truth, or a simple command to mind his own business, anything to cover the shameful tremor that ran through him. His hand, that Bilbo had called steady not a moment before, now felt suspended and weak, and he thought he should grasp after Bilbo’s curls to give himself something to do. Instead they only hung there, now in Bilbo’s field of vision, as must have been his own stricken expression.

He forced his face to neutrality, but still felt cold, knew he must be pale. Thorin looked away, looked down, and knew too much time had passed now for anything but suspicion should he snap a simple excuse, or fail to answer. He settled his hands in his lap, eyes lowered but flickering up to Bilbo’s as he spoke.

“This,” he began, gesturing at his face, the fingers scraping through the short hairs, fisting in them, before that weakness returned and they fell numb into his lap again. “An oath that I took, long ago. That I would seek no husband or wife, display no beauty or status, until the burned beards of my forefathers were avenged.”

“I noticed it was shorter than most of the others, but I’m not… sure I follow,” Bilbo said, and Thorin dared not look at him, only heard in his voice the careful uncertainty, as if each word was examined and chosen before speaking for fear of giving offense.

“No, you would not, would you? You are like Men, in this,” Thorin said, not unkindly, he hoped. “Each clan is unique, and decorate themselves in different ways. But mine, the Longbeards, pride ourselves in length and decoration of our beards when showing ourselves off for... for a potential spouse.”

“Oh… oh! So you’re _not_ trying to attract anyone, is that it?” Bilbo said, and was that disappointment in his voice?

“I have not for over a hundred years. Not since we lost our home,” Thorin said, voice low and rough. “As for attract, no, it is more likely that I repulse them, though the Company and my kin have grown used to my disfigurement. They understand the reasons behind it.”

“Not everyone does?” Bilbo said, his own voice lowering to match Thorin’s.

Thorin gave a derisive snort at this. “Some call it an excess of grief, or an excess of pride. As if I take some twisted pleasure in cutting myself week after week. Or in being alone.” He shook his head ruefully. “It is neither of those. I take no pleasure in pain. It is only an oath I swore, and one I will not give up.”

Yet when he looked up, he saw that Bilbo’s face was shadowed as if by grief and surprise. “But you do it anyway? Surely they’re not entirely wrong. There must be a limit to how long you must suffer over this? You speak as if it pains you to continue it.”

“… It does. All of my people tend their beards, cut or braid it to their liking, but so short?” An instinctive shiver of disgust ran through Thorin at the words, as if describing a rotting wound. “I will never become used to it.”

Why was he being so open? Surely it had been decades since he’d last needed to explain his choice, over a century since he had first knelt, shuddering and raw from his own tears, and hacked away the single braid with his knife. And why to Bilbo Baggins, of all people?

“I see,” Bilbo said. He reached up, patting a hand at Thorin’s shoulder, a quick and self-conscious gesture. Then he paused, hand still resting there, warm through Thorin’s shirt. “If it’s any consolation, I had no idea, that you were meant to be ugly. To be honest, I thought you quite the handsomest of the Company.” He trailed off at the last, making an odd face, surprise turning to horror as his eyes jerked to Thorin’s face. “You see, we don’t really do the… thing… with the beards in the Shire. Couldn’t if we wanted to. Bit of sideburns is the extent of it really. So I never thought much of it, except that it was nice. It looked nice, I mean. Not disfigured at all, quite the opposite. Handsome, really, and I’m going to shut up now before I make this any worse.”

The silence that fell was only made worse by the look of pale horror on Bilbo’s face and Thorin’s own inability to think of anything to say in the face of that torrent. There was also something odd going on with his own face, something that felt like heat crawling its way up his throat to his face like fire.

“I appreciate it,” Thorin hazarded after a moment, and Bilbo deflated instantly.

“Oh thank goodness,” he said. “Umm, I’m sorry, I believe I interrupted you?” He turned back around, making a weak gesture over his shoulder at the remaining tendrils Thorin had missed.

With Bilbo’s back turned, Thorin finally allowed his shoulders to fall, that stiffness leaving him as Bilbo’s eyes did. Nevertheless, as he acquiesced and evened out the remainder of the hobbit’s hair to the length he recalled from when first they met, Thorin found his movements had slowed. It took twice as long as it should have, and by the time it was over, and he had no further excuse to touch Bilbo, his hands lingered. Slow and deliberate, testing the curls to be sure not a one was out of place, that Bilbo's shoulders were thoroughly dusted off.

It was the length of time it took for the silly grin that tightened Thorin's face to fade, so that when Bilbo turned back around he was once again solemn, aloof as he raised an eyebrow at the hobbit, and gestured that he was free to stand. Bilbo jolted to his feet, turning on his heels and nodding once to Thorin in thanks as he rose, and replaced the sheers in their leather slip.

Bilbo ran a hand through his curls, testing them with his hand, and then gave a grin and a relieved sigh. “Much better.”

“My pleasure. Any time,” Thorin said easily, before his own words caught up at him, and he would have smacked himself for his presumption, except that Bilbo’s grin widened.

“Likewise! That is, umm,” Bilbo stopped, tapping the tips of fingers together. “That is, if you want company the next time you, y’know, do that.”

It is a solitary duty, not a social call. A solemn rite to commemorate the loss of his people, of his family, of the depths of the oath he had sworn and the reality of the life he lived, a burden he may never lose until death took him, it was not…

“I would like that,” Thorin said, and knew it for truth at the weight that seemed to fall from his shoulders, and the answering smile from Bilbo made him feel lighter than he had in years. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! As always, a comment would be so much appreciated, as I love being able to put a voice to my readers and know more about what worked or didn't work for you. Either way, feel free to pop around [Tumblr](http://www.avelera.tumblr.com) and cry over Bagginshield with me.


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